بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Headline News 09/11/2019
Headlines:
Pompeo’s Reactions to Macron’s Call for a Powerful Europe
Secular India after Occupying Kashmir Fails to Protect Site of Destroyed Babri Masjid
US MCCOil in Syria
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Details:
Pompeo’s Reactions to Macron’s Call for a Powerful Europe
Following an interview this week in which French President Emmanuel Macron called for a stronger Europe allied with Russia to counter the possibility of a new bipolar world dominated by the United States and China, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended NATO leadership from Macron’s attacks. According to Reuters:
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday NATO must grow and change or risk becoming obsolete, a day after French President Emmanuel Macron said the alliance was dying.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rejected Macron’s comments, in an interview with British weekly The Economist, as “drastic” and Pompeo said on Thursday the alliance was perhaps one of the most important “in all recorded history”.
But he acknowledged the need for NATO to evolve in a question-and-answer session after delivering a speech in Berlin on Friday, one day before the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“Seventy years on ... it (NATO) needs to grow and change,” he replied. “It needs to confront the realities of today and the challenges of today.”
“If nations believe that they can get the security benefit without providing NATO the resources that it needs, if they don’t live up to their commitments, there is a risk that NATO could become ineffective or obsolete,” he said.
The struggles between Western governments are a consequence of the West’s division into separate nation states, cemented in the 17th century Peace of Westphalia but actually rooted in Christianity’s treatment of church and state as two separate co-existing entities. When the Christian Pope was strong, Europe was able to sustain a more unified foreign policy. But as the Catholic Church weakened, individual European kings embarked on their own independent foreign adventures, building their own national imperial interests which naturally came into conflict with one another. Western imperialism continues under other names today and so does the conflict between Western powers. Allah (swt) says in the noble Qur’an:
[وَمِنَ الَّذِينَ قَالُواْ إِنَّا نَصَارَى أَخَذْنَا مِيثَاقَهُمْ فَنَسُواْ حَظًّا مِّمَّا ذُكِّرُواْ بِهِ فَأَغْرَيْنَا بَيْنَهُمُ الْعَدَاوَةَ وَالْبَغْضَاء إِلَى يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ وَسَوْفَ يُنَبِّئُهُمُ اللّهُ بِمَا كَانُواْ يَصْنَعُونَ]
“And from those who say, "We are Christians" We took their covenant; but they forgot a portion of that of which they were reminded. So We caused among them animosity and hatred until the Day of Resurrection. And Allah is going to inform them about what they used to do.” [al-Maida: 14]
Secular India after Occupying Kashmir Fails to Protect Site of Destroyed Babri Masjid
After more than a quarter of a century, the Indian Supreme Court has finally issued its ruling on the site of the Babri Masjid. According to the Washington Post:
India’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the land at the center of the country’s most contentious religious dispute would pass to a trust, paving the way for the construction of a Hindu temple at a site where a mosque once stood.
The site in the town of Ayodhya must pass to the trust within three months, the judges said. A Muslim group will receive land at an alternate location for a potential mosque.
The verdict in the decades-old dispute is a major victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who won reelection in a landslide in May. The building of a temple to the Hindu god Ram is a long-held objective of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
In 1992, Hindu extremists tore down a 16th-century mosque in Ayodhya to make way for the temple, an act that set off deadly communal riots across the country. Hindu nationalist groups believe the mosque was built at the site of Ram’s birthplace where a Hindu temple once stood.
Ahead of Saturday’s verdict, authorities beefed up security precautions across the country. In India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, schools were shut in anticipation of possible unrest. Restrictions on public gatherings were implemented in Delhi and Mumbai, India’s two largest cities, according to local news reports.
Modi appealed for calm the night before the verdict. “We must maintain harmony together,” he wrote on Twitter. “Whatever decision on Ayodhya comes from the Supreme Court, it will not be anyone’s defeat or victory.”
Outside the Supreme Court on Saturday, shouts of “Jai Shri Ram!” — victory to Lord Ram — and “We will build a temple there!” broke out after the verdict was announced. Some blew conch shells, a traditional Hindu signal of triumph.
Indian politicians have long held out a secularism as the key to enabling Muslims and Hindus to live peacefully together but the actions of the Modi government expose the true face not only of the Indian regime but of secularism itself.
The modern concept of secularism is connected to the philosophy of Liberalism, which claims to provide freedom to all. In fact, it is not possible that individuals living collectively in society can do as they wish without concern for others. Any realistic political philosophy needs to account for the balance between individual and society, which Liberalism fails to do. The result is that those individuals who enjoy greater strength or influence inevitably dominate at the expense of the rest of society. This is the actual reason that the present Hindu regime has been able to comfortably trample over Muslim rights. This contrasts with the Islamic view which explicitly guarantees protections for other religions. Allah (swt) says in the Noble Qur’an:
[الَّذِينَ أُخْرِجُوا مِن دِيَارِهِمْ بِغَيْرِ حَقٍّ إِلَّا أَن يَقُولُوا رَبُّنَا اللَّهُ وَلَوْلَا دَفْعُ اللَّهِ النَّاسَ بَعْضَهُم بِبَعْضٍ لَّهُدِّمَتْ صَوَامِعُ وَبِيَعٌ وَصَلَوَاتٌ وَمَسَاجِدُ يُذْكَرُ فِيهَا اسْمُ اللَّهِ كَثِيرًا وَلَيَنصُرَنَّ اللَّهُ مَن يَنصُرُهُ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَقَوِيٌّ عَزِيزٌ]
“[They are] those who have been evicted from their homes without right - only because they say, "Our Lord is Allah" And were it not that Allah checks the people, some by means of others, there would have been demolished monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques in which the name of Allah is much mentioned. And Allah will surely support those who support Him. Indeed, Allah is Powerful and Exalted in Might.” [al-Haj: 40]
US Moves to Consolidate Control of Oil in Syria
Although the United States has been playing a most complex game in Syria of employing the military forces of other countries to bring its various areas under control, there is one area that the US itself decided to patrol, an area with very little population but a highly strategic location and a great deal of oil. The Trump administration has finally come clean on the oil, though they have yet to admit the geopolitical value of Deir ez-Zor which is close to the conjunction of Syria, Iraq and Jordan. According to the Guardian:
US officials are struggling to explain the mission of up to a thousand US troops in Syria, who have mostly taken up positions near oil fields in response to Donald Trump’s orders.
A fortnight after ordering a complete evacuation of US troops ahead of a Turkish incursion into northeastern Syria, abandoning Kurdish partners in the fight against Isis, Trump changed his mind and said some forces should stay but only to “secure the oil”.
So as hundreds US special forces are being flown out of Syria, hundreds of other soldiers, equipped with armoured vehicles, have been driving into the region, heading for small-scale oil patches Der Ezzor and Hasakah provinces, but without a clear idea of what they were supposed to do there…
“We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers because we’re keeping the oil,” he said on 1 November. “I like oil. We’re keeping the oil.”
The president suggested that taking possession of Syrian natural resources would be fair “reimbursement” for the cost of going to war there…
Western foreign policy remains centred on imperialism, the need to dominate the entire world in order to exploit its wealth and resources for the Western elites. With Allah’s permission, the mankind shall soon witness the return of a state that seeks only to return peace, justice and prosperity to the world as it was once before, in the form of the re-established Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) State on the method of the Prophet (saw).